magic books – MagicShow.Tips

New Year’s Resolutions

Looking forward into 2025 my new year’s resolution is to read more. That’s it, nothing crazy, just to read more and scroll (on my phone) less. One of the best books that I read last year was the Wayne Dobson’s Legacy book set.

It does a great job telling his story and his thinking behind many of the tricks. Soo many of the tricks are very “wayne” however there are a couple in there that have me thinking of ways to adapt them for me to do.

I’m going into 2025 reading Steve Spill’s book Magic is My Weed. This is a great book so far. Steve does a great job telling his story, but more importantly he tells why he does things and how he got there.

I think this is a missing thing from magic books, the journey of how the everything developed and the tools the author used to get there. Much of what’s in print is simply how to do the trick, but I find how the trick was created much more interesting. I’d day 99.9% of the stuff that I read and work through are tricks that I’ll never do. Yes, there is value in working through a trick even it you won’t perform it. You’ll learn new techniques or maybe an old technique that you can apply to something you’re already doing. It also puts things in your mental toolbox that you may need to get you out of a situation!

I’m looking forward to reading more in 2025!

-Louie

Magic at Powell’s Books!

Powell’s Books legendary bookstore in Portland Oregon. They have a huge selection of new and more importantly used books. You never know what you’ll find there. I frequently pop in and take a peek at their magic section.

There are a ton of legit magic books there, from Card College, to Max Maven’s PRISM! Since these are used books selling on the normal used book market, there are some deals to be had!

For me the greatest thing was in the shelf there was a magic coloring book!

This was being sold as a magic book, there was not context for it and no instructions. I wonder how many people picked it up and and were confused by it…or possibly amazed if they flipped though it and it was blank. Then wondered why it was blank, and flipped again and it had pictures!

If you visit the Portland OR area, visiting Powell’s books is worth a stop!

-Louie

Will Goldston Magic Books

I’m going though stuff that I have and on my shelf I have a really cool set of Will Goldston Magic Books. These are the Locked Book Series where the first three originally came with a leather binding with a lock on it. Unfortunately most of the copies that have their original bindings are in rough condition and usually the lock is unattached.

The set I have are numbered first editions and have been rebound and it’s previous owner was John Pomeroy who owned GEM Magic.

I mentioned the previous owner to David Charvet and he said he thinks that Pomeroy put the new covers on them himself!

This is a cool set of books and they’re available as reprints that you can find on Amazon. They’re worth looking into!

– Louie

Magic Books for Sale!

I’ve just added some magic books to the Used Magic page on this blog.

I’ll be adding more soon, and there’s only one of each and when it’s gone, it’s gone. So if you need any of these for your collection, order them now!

https://www.magicshow.tips/used-magic-for-sale/

-Louie

New Book Day!

I’m always trying to expand my knowledge about magic and magic techniques. I just had four news books arrive!

These four books are on vary different things within magic! I think it’s important to be well rounded and know as much as you can about as much of magic as possible. It makes you better in an impromptu situation, and it makes you a better creator.

Knowledge is power and sometimes you can find a technique from a style that’s something you wouldn’t normally do, but can find a way to apply it to what you do!

-Louie

Magic Books…

TI’m a magic book guy, I love magic books. My generation of magic is at the tail end of books, when I was getting serious about magic videos didn’t really exist. The VHS tapes that were around were insanely expensive at $75-$100 bucks!

Being a book guy, that means you find a lot of hidden little gems of magic. Things that are cool and buried in a book. Someone once told me that the best things in books are the tricks with no illustrations. They are the things that the author wants in print to assert ownership, but doesn’t want anyone to do.

My book collection is pretty big and I like having a large selection of books to reference, or to read. I’ve also worked through most of the stuff in all of the books I own. Many years ago, Eugene Burger mentioned in an article in a magic magazine that he only had a few magic books. He loved books, read them, however he didn’t keep them. He gave them away after reading them.

I thought it was strange that he didn’t keep books. As I get older, and my performing style is more defined, the books that want to keep are probably less than a couple dozen. Most of these books would be books that had an influence on my, now that I really need to read them again.

This has made me think about the advice that you should “Only learn seven tricks”. This is advice that I don’t agree with. You can’t pick seven trick without learning hundreds of tricks to pick those seven. We no longer live in a time where you can make a career out of a handful of tricks. You need to keep learning and adding to your base knowledge to grow!

TLDR: Keep learning, but you don’t need to be a hoarder!